As Leroy Keyes and Mike Alstott stood side by side at last week’s NFF Dinner, your mind quickly drifted back two decades when the relationship of the two greatest running backs in Purdue history started.

The 1995 season was Alstott’s last as a Boilermaker before embarking on a stellar NFL career and a Super Bowl title with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Keyes, a member of Purdue’s first Rose Bowl team, was his running backs coach.

“Leroy and I are close. Leroy is one of the guys that put Purdue on the map with all his great accomplishments,” Alstott said. “Not knowing much about Leroy, when I was here, you hear the name, and all of sudden he’s my coach my senior year.”

Fitting that Keyes and Alstott took their places in the Indiana Football Hall of Fame on the same evening, joining Winamac coach Tim Roth in the induction ceremony.

Keyes, a native of Newport Beach, Va., wonders how many other coaches have been inducted into a Hall of Fame with one of their players at the same time.

“I probably couldn’t find many,” said Keyes, who retired from the Purdue athletic department in 2011. “That makes it that much better because someone said, ‘Leroy, you’re deserving, Mike, you’re deserving. We’re going to make sure you guys share the same table.’ ”

They also shared the same sideline for that one season.

Jim Colletto’s tenure as head coach was running out of steam, and Alstott was the main attraction on a team which finished 4-6-1. Alstott broke Keyes’ career touchdown mark that season, finishing with 39. Kory Sheets now holds the record with 48.

Alstott, who resides in St. Petersburg, Fla., with his wife, Nicole, and three children, also set the single-season rushing mark (1,436 yards) in 1995 with Keyes watching every handoff and every yard. Alstott remains the program’s career rushing leader (3,635 yards).

His final game was a spectacular 264-yard rushing performance against Indiana, the second-most in school history.

“It wasn’t ‘do this, do that.’ It was more, ‘I understand you’re a senior and you’ve come a long way. I’m going to help your game,’ ” Alstott said of Keyes. “We became very close and enjoyed some special moments, breaking a couple of his records. He was part of it.”

Keyes didn’t have to push Alstott to work. The Joliet, Ill., native came to Purdue determined to become a better football player. Alstott wanted to be the best and did nearly everything to improve every day to reach his own personal goals.

If that meant pushing a Jeep Wrangler across the Ross-Ade Stadium parking lot, dragging two truck tires strapped to his waist while sprinting 40 yards or pushing a Volkswagen in high school, Alstott did it.

“I didn’t want to be average and bide my time,” said Alstott, who is set to begin his third season as the head coach at Northside Christian in St. Petersburg. “In the pros, I wanted to be the best. Sometimes, people around me said I had a little insanity. I think all the people who take it to the next level find a way to beat their competition.”

Those players don’t exist anymore, according to Keyes, who averaged a program-best 5.8 yards per carry during his career.

“I think they’re running away from pulling the Jeep. I don’t think they want to pull a go-kart,” he said.

Regardless, Keyes’ one season coaching Alstott is one he won’t forget. It was the start of something that is still strong today, punctuated by the Hall of Fame induction.

“It’s hard to say how things happen or why they happen, but I’m just glad I’m on this side of the ground and able to be a participant to see this,” Keyes said. “You could’ve been left in the thought tank of a lot of people, but to come back and have an opportunity to be at your alma mater, coach the greatest running back of all time and then see him be successful is wonderful. In the meanwhile, someone is thinking of your exploits. That makes it much more special.”